MANAGEMT 894.301 (2026 Spring 1)

Thursdays 3-5:15pm (2008 MBA Classroom)

Future of Work (Mini-Course; 6 Classes; 1.5 Course Credits)

Instructor: Professor Jonathon Cummings <jonathon.cummings@duke.edu>

Teaching Assistant: Jessica Reif <jessica.reif@duke.edu>

This course will present a framework for thinking about work in the future. Building on societal, technological, and business trends in employment, the classes are organized around five themes: (1) why you work in the future, (2) how you work in the future, (3) where and when you work in the future, (4) who and what you work with in the future, and (5) what you work on in the future. An interdisciplinary perspective will draw from research on management, psychology, human resources, and information systems to highlight the implications of working in the future. Student interest in taking the course could range from those who plan to go into consulting to those who want to consider new alternative career paths to those who want to build tools or companies to support the future of work.

Note: there is not a coursepack for Future of Work, rather discussion in each class will be guided by weekly memos posted on Canvas with an overview of relevant topics.

Grading

In-Class Participation: 30% (5% x 6 classes)
Pre-Class Assignments: 30% (5% x 6 classes) (Due @ 11:59pm ET night before class)
Guest Speaker Reflection Essay: 10% (Due February 28 @ 11:59pm ET)
Final Project: 30% (individual submission) (Due February 28 @ 11:59pm ET)

Class 1. Introduction to the Future of Work (Thursday, January 15)

The first class will provide an overview of the course, discuss societal, technological, and business trends in employment, and present a framework for working in the future. We will also explore the career context decisions that shape your trajectory: organizational structure preferences, resource environments, industry maturity, and career path flexibility.

Pre-Class 1 assignment: A future of work strategy is a set of initiatives to address the uncertainty and implications of future events that lead to changes in how, when and where work is done; who or what does the work; and even what is considered work (Gartner, 2024).

You will be asked to complete the Future of Work Career Assessment, which is a 72-question instrument across six dimensions: Career Context, Motivation, Work Relationships, Time & Place, Technology & AI, and Work Content. These questions were designed to help you reflect on what a future of work trajectory looks like for you 5-10 years from now. For example, will you work for the same organization, a new organization, or will you work for yourself? What will you change, if anything, about how, when, or where you work in the future? Will you shift your thinking about what work you want (or are willing) to do? Will you think differently about the meaning of work itself?

Class discussion will explore questions such as: What technological and societal trends are shaping how firms and workers re-evaluate work? How is the record rate of employment turnover and job change impacting employers and employees? Why are generational differences such a big concern for firms today? How will corporations need to change to ensure that prospective employees will want to work there in the future? How do organizational structure and resource availability shape career opportunities differently across established versus emerging industries? What does the shift toward non-linear career paths mean for how you plan your trajectory?

Class 2. Why you work in the future (Thursday, January 22)

The second class will focus on the shift in motivation around why people work in their job, and the impact it has on individuals seeking employment as well as firms hiring new employees

Pre-Class 2 assignment: Changes in the uncertainty and implications of future events can be driven by an organization or by trends in external forces such as emerging technology, market shifts and demographic changes (Gartner, 2024).

You will be asked to identify trends that can impact your future of work trajectory identified in the pre-class 1 assignment. You can source trends from the Class 1 pre-reading or other sources such as white papers, press releases, or industry reports. You can also derive trends from a multistep process by envisioning a potential future and working backward to what must take place for that future to happen. There are several techniques you could use for envisioning a potential future, including a pre-mortem, 'science fiction writing,' analyzing competitor behavior and cross-industry analogues.

Class discussion will explore questions such as: What factors are influencing firms to identify a clear social purpose to their business mission? What are companies doing to help workers balance work and personal life? How does offering employees more autonomy change managing and retaining talent? Why would better understanding the hopes and desires of employees make a difference for corporate performance? How do you balance material rewards against intrinsic purpose when evaluating career opportunities? What role does external validation versus internal satisfaction play in your career motivation? How does your preferred time horizon (e.g., immediate results versus long-term legacy) shape the types of roles you pursue?

Class 3. How you work in the future (Thursday, January 29)

The third class will focus on the shift in how people work in their job, and the impact it has on individuals managing their own employment as well as firms managing their workforce

Pre-Class 3 Assignment: You will be asked to interpret trends (through the lens of trends uncertainty and trends impact) to understand the relevance and implications of the trends you identified in the pre-class 2 assignment (Gartner, 2024).

Trends uncertainty involves assessing trends on a spectrum of low to high uncertainty. The four categories along that spectrum are: trends that are a reality today, predictable trends, unpredictable trends and transformative trends. This will help you understand the implications of these trends for future goals. You can further ascertain trends' relevance by comparing the degree of uncertainty against the time horizon you consider in planning for the future of work.

Trends impact involves assessing trends based on the influence of external factors, such as technological, political, economic, social or cultural, trust or ethics, regulatory or legal, and environmental factors (TPESTRE or 'tapestry' analysis). This will help you uncover which trends have the greatest potential impact. You can further understand the relevance by identifying factors that will accelerate or inhibit each trend's impact.

Class discussion will explore questions such as: What kinds of highly skilled freelancers are in demand by organizations today? How does being employed as a gig-worker impact identity, sense of belonging, and firm culture? When should a side-hustle become a full-time job? What are some of the important job opportunity differences across on-demand labor platforms? How does the shift toward self-directed work change the skills needed for success? When do collaborative versus independent work styles create better outcomes? How are compensation models evolving beyond traditional salaries, and what are the implications for career risk?

Class 4. Where and when you work in the future (Thursday, February 5)

The fourth class will focus on the shift in where and when people work in their job, and the impact it has on individuals setting up their own work arrangements as well as firms supporting different work arrangements for employees

Pre-Class 4 Assignment: You will be asked to prioritize the trends you interpreted in the pre-class 3 assignment with the greatest potential impact or opportunity for competitive advantage (Gartner, 2024).

There are a variety of prioritization tools available to help with prioritizing the trends [e.g., Eisenhower matrix - important vs urgent; Kano technique - Must-be, Attractive, One-Dimensional, Indifferent, and Reverse; RICE - reach, impact, confidence, and effort; Moscow method - (M) Must have, (S) Should have, (C) Could have, (W) Won't have].

Class discussion will explore questions such as: What types of activities are best suited for remote or hybrid work? When do co-working spaces maintain or increase productivity for teams of employees? How does a four-day work week impact employees and customers? What does mentoring and social support look like when working together at a distance? How does the shift toward asynchronous communication change team dynamics and decision-making across time zones?

Class 5. Who and what you work with in the future (Thursday, February 12)

The fifth class will focus on the shift in people working with humans and machines to do their job, and the impact it has on individuals working collaboratively with technology as well as firms using technology to enhance the effectiveness of their workforce

Pre-Class 5 Assignment: You will be asked to predict the likelihood of success for two future scenarios based on trends you generated in the pre-class 4 assignment (Gartner, 2024). The future scenarios can be broad or specific, as long as they are plausible.

Using ChatGPT (or another generative AI tool), you will ask a series of questions about each of the future scenarios. Based on the ChatGPT responses to the questions you asked (e.g., what are the strengths of... ?, what are the weaknesses of..., what are the opportunities for...?, what are the threats for ...?), you will rate the likelihood of success for each scenario.

Class discussion will explore questions such as: When would greater reliance on cognitive technologies (e.g., decision support systems, digital assistants, conversational agents) enhance greater human connection at work? How should workers be trained to effectively interact with intelligent systems? What types of generative AI (such as automated story-telling, image generation, or video production) are best suited as inputs to the creative process? How does the integration of AI reshape the balance between people-centric and systems-centric work? What level of delegation to AI systems are you comfortable with, and how might that change over time?

Class 6. What you work on in the future (Thursday, February 19)

The sixth class will focus on the shift in what people work on in their job, and the impact it has on individuals in their day-to-day activities as well as firms designing work for employees

Pre-Class 6 Assignment: You will be asked to test the scenario you developed in the pre-class 5 assignment that had the highest likelihood of success (Gartner, 2024).

To test the selected scenario, first identify possible events that must or must not happen for each scenario to unfold. This will help lay out an event path from the current state to future scenarios and enable you to monitor whether the future is evolving to favor a particular scenario. Then you can then assess the likelihood of possible events influencing the scenario (highest probability of occurrence and degree of disruption).

Class discussion will explore questions such as: How do new models of work, such as agile methodologies, impact perceptions of fairness and value? What types of tasks in the firm will be re-designed to facilitate workflow around unique personal skills rather than specified job roles? How do intellectual capital and tolerance for risk shape the kinds of entrepreneurial initiatives pursued inside and outside of a company? When is deep specialization more valuable than broad generalist skills? How do you navigate roles with ambiguous success metrics versus clearly defined deliverables? What cognitive approaches (e.g., systematic analysis versus intuitive pattern recognition) are best suited to different types of problems?

Final Project: Your Future of Work Career Assessment results can serve as a starting point for identifying the trends most relevant to your trajectory and the career contexts where your preferences align or create tension. Prepare your Future of Work strategy (5-10 years from now) based on the insights learned in Classes 1-6. The pre-class assignments will give you a head start on the trends analysis (Class 2: identify trends, Class 3: interpret trends, Class 4: prioritize trends) and scenario creation (Class 5: develop future scenarios, Class 6: test scenarios). Adding the strategic planning (identify key initiative, design projects under key initiatives, and propose how you will measure progress on your key initiatives) will complete the final project. Keep in mind that you are thinking about your future of work trajectory, so if it involves working for an organization then the strategy would be about the future of your work organization and if it involves working for yourself then your strategy would be about your own future work.

[ https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/how-to-craft-a-highly-effective-future-of-work-strategy ]